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Tardis
"Midnight entity" is a title based upon conjecture.

Check the behind the scenes section, the revision history and discussion page for additional comments on this article's title.

An unidentified entity was encountered on the planet Midnight by the passengers and crew of Crusader 50, with the Tenth Doctor among them. It managed to possess Sky Silvestry as it toyed with the rising tension of the passengers, even managing to paralyze the Doctor, after he had showcased his superior intelligence, in a bid to get him thrown out into the fatal X-tonic rays of the planet's surface, but was foiled when the Hostess of Crusader 50 threw herself and the possessed Sky off the bus. (TV: Midnight [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 4 (BBC One, 2008).) The entity was still on the planet four-hundred-thousand years afterwards, where it ran afoul of the Fifteenth Doctor as it tried to escape Midnight. (TV: The Well [+]Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall, Doctor Who series 15 (BBC One and Disney+, 2025).)

Biography[]

Background[]

The entity claimed to have "waited so long in the dark and the cold and the diamonds" of Midnight, despite the common belief that no life could survive on the planet's surface due to it being bombarded with fatal levels of X-tonic rays galvanic radiation. (TV: Midnight [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 4 (BBC One, 2008).)

Tormenting the Crusader 50[]

Midnight entity

The entity in Sky Silvestry's body. (TV: Midnight [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 4 (BBC One, 2008).)

During the 27th century, (PROSE: The Time Traveller's Almanac [+]Steve Tribe, BBC Books (2008).) the Crusader 50 tour bus that was taking a previously-unexplored detour on a tour to the Sapphire Waterfall apparently broke down. When the Tenth Doctor encouraged Driver Joe to take a look out a window, the on-board trainee mechanic, Claude, noticed a shadow among the diamonds that was moving in the distance, "running" towards the bus. Soon afterwards, the entity knocked twice around the bus to get everyone's attention. When Biff Cane and the Doctor knocked a different number of times, the entity mimicked the pattern exactly. Following Sky Silvestry's hysterical blathering, the entity closed in on her from the outside and somehow entered the shuttle without any sign of a breach, causing a dent in the shuttle's wall, while ripping off the cockpit, killing Joe and Claude. In the following blackout from the loss of the main generator, the entity possessed Sky, with the seats around her huddled, initially-immobile body having been left stripped bare.

The entity then repeated every word a person said in exact precision, including the square root of pi to thirty decimal places. Soon thereafter, the entity was able to copy others word-for-word at the exact same time, and then it proceeded to solely copy the Doctor while ignoring the others. Eventually, the entity stole the Doctor's voice, paralysing him and forcing him to repeat after it instead. Taking advantage of the hysterical level of paranoia that was already amongst the passengers, the entity convinced them that the Doctor was now possessed and needed to be thrown off the bus. However, while Professor Winfold Hobbes and Biff were trying to get rid of the Doctor, the entity began using phrases that only the Doctor had previously said, prompting the attention of the hostess, who sacrificed herself by dragging the possessed Sky out into the X-tonic light, vaporising both of them to free the Doctor from the entity's grip and to ensure the safety of the passengers.

However, the Doctor had no idea if the hostess actually killed the entity, and made arrangements for the Leisure Palace Company to withdraw its facilities from Midnight and abandon the planet to its eternal silence once more, preventing the entity from claiming any more victims. (TV: Midnight [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 4 (BBC One, 2008).)

Escaping Colony Base 15[]

Roughly four hundred-thousand years later, after Midnight had become an unremarkable desolate wasteland after its sun had collapsed into a grey star and all the diamonds on the surface had been stripped by various alien activities in war, the entity still survived and was now residing beneath the planet's surface. The entity emerged when a Lombardic mining colony opened a drilling well at Colony Base 15 and the miners drilled five miles beneath the base, with the entity apparently "laughing" as it emerged. The entity latched onto the colonists one by one and whispered to them, compelling them to destroy all the mirrors in the base. It killed anyone who moved behind its hosts whilst a third party was viewing the host's front by breaking their bodies, moving from host to host as panic was incited in the colonists, leading to them killing each other, though anyone who killed the entity's host then became its new host. Eventually, only chef Aliss Fenly remained, with her protected from the entity's whispers due to her being deaf.

Aliss was found by a a Lombardic military outfit sent to relieve the base fifteen days later, accompanied by the Fifteenth Doctor and Belinda Chandra. Belinda and several of the soldiers caught glimpses of the entity over Aliss's shoulder, causing them to become increasingly paranoid. The entity eventually killed most of the soldiers, including Cassio Palin-Paleen. The Doctor confronted it once again, only to be shocked and disturbed when the entity whispered his name to him. The Doctor realised that the entity's attacking mechanism would adversely affect itself if its host's back was facing a reflective surface, so he cast reflective liquid mercury behind Aliss. The entity violently released Aliss, leaving everyone to flee for the airlock, with the Doctor lingering behind to get a look at the entity's true appearance, but Belinda had him flee when they only caught a glimpse. Due to the airlock having a limited capacity, Aliss and two soldiers were sent first, leaving the Doctor, Belinda, Shaya Costallion and Mo Gilliben exposed as they waited for their turn at the airlock, and the entity attacked again, taking Belinda as its host in an attempt to escape from the planet. Shaya chose to sacrifice herself to save Belinda and stop it, shooting Belinda just above the heart, causing the entity to take Shaya as a host instead. Shaya then threw herself into the well, seemingly trapping the entity once again. Afterwards, the Doctor ordered that Midnight be nuked from orbit, and for no one to ever return, in an attempt to trap or destroy the entity forever. However, the entity may have managed to take Mo as a host and escape from the planet as another trooper appeared to spot something behind Mo. (TV: The Well [+]Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall, Doctor Who series 15 (BBC One and Disney+, 2025).)

Psychological profile[]

Powers and abilities[]

Midnight main

The entity mimics the Doctor. (TV: Midnight [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 4 (BBC One, 2008).)

The entity was capable of surviving on the planet Midnight, despite the X-tonic rays that otherwise killed any form of life and were believed to be universally deadly. It apparently is unable to leave the planet under its own power: expressing resentment at its long solitude on Midnight, and relying on hijacking visitors with access to extra-planetary travel to try and leave. In its host-less form, the entity was capable of shaking a Crusader 50 bus, causing dents in its walls and ripping off the cockpit, feats which would require great strength. It was able to enter the bus without breaching its integrity once it chose to possess Sky Silvestry, although the process by which it did so still caused a large inward dent to form in the shuttle, destroyed the shuttle's power generator and damaged the seats surrounding Sky. It was also capable before approaching the bus of forcing it to stop moving without deactivating its engine, confounding the onboard driver and mechanic. (TV: Midnight [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 4 (BBC One, 2008).) It was capable of effortlessly lifting an adult humanoid into the air and breaking every bone in their body in a matter of seconds, killing them. (TV: The Well [+]Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall, Doctor Who series 15 (BBC One and Disney+, 2025).)

When the entity possessed Sky, it completely and utterly overrode her personality. It started to copy what all of the people around it said, then speak at the same time, then narrow its mimicry down to just the Doctor, then predict what the Doctor would say: at the latter stage, the entity would promptly "steal [the] voice" of the Doctor, gaining control over what they both said, albeit still exhibiting the Doctor's verbal tics and speech patterns, whilst the Doctor became paralyzed and was forced to repeat the entity's words. The link between the entity and the Doctor was broken when the entity and Sky were forced off the bus into the X-tonic sunlight. (TV: Midnight [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 4 (BBC One, 2008).) The Doctor believed that the entity was trying to learn about its surroundings while also playing a sadistic game. (TV: The Well [+]Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall, Doctor Who series 15 (BBC One and Disney+, 2025).) The entity seemed to be able to learn at an incredibly rapid pace and absorbed the passengers' speech without forgetting, hesitating, or making a single mistake, or even predicting the next word in a sentence. It was described by Jack Harkness as a creature that could eat its way into the brain and steal the host's voice. (WC: Monster File: Midnight [+]Justin Richards, Captain Jack's Monster Files (2008).)

When the Fifteenth Doctor met the entity once more, it was capable of latching onto a host without harming their personality, its natural form very briefly appearing in partial glimpses to external parties over the host's shoulder, but otherwise completely invisible. When severed from a host, the entity's true form could disappear and reappear from sight. The entity would whisper to its host, which only they could hear, and drive them mad, though Aliss Fenly' physical deafness allowed her immunity to the psychological effects. The entity was also said to be capable of laughing. The entity was able to establish a fine line of influence through its host: as illustrated by Belinda Chandra, a non-host facing the host's back while a third party was simultaneously viewing the host from in front, in such a way that the host's body broke the line of sight between the other two parties, would cause the entity to immediately become visible to the party behind the host's back and to kill them. The host exposing their back to multiple people while the host's front was unobserved caused no ill effects; furthermore, one victim appeared to delay the entity's attack by attempting to run and initially not looking at the host's back, but he was attacked once he glanced back over his shoulder and saw the host's back. The entity itself was susceptible to this attack mechanism turning on itself if a reflection was cast behind the host's back, essentially forcing the entity to see and attack itself, although the damage would be non-lethal to the entity and would simply force it to part from the host. The entity otherwise wouldn't move from its host unless the host was killed or dying. (TV: The Well [+]Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall, Doctor Who series 15 (BBC One and Disney+, 2025).)

The entity itself claimed, while impersonating Sky to gaslight the humans present after it had stolen the Doctor's voice, that it could "creep into [the] head[s]" of non-hosts and "whisper" to make them fight each other, (TV: Midnight [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 4 (BBC One, 2008).) a claim which the Fifteenth Doctor supported. (TV: The Well [+]Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall, Doctor Who series 15 (BBC One and Disney+, 2025).) This was observed within the rapid onset cabin fever and increased internal aggression among the Crusader 50 passengers, (TV: Midnight [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 4 (BBC One, 2008).) and with the disobedience and aggression in two of the soldiers. (TV: The Well [+]Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall, Doctor Who series 15 (BBC One and Disney+, 2025).)

Appearance[]

While the Fifteenth Doctor described the entity as having no face, no name and no self, (TV: The Well [+]Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall, Doctor Who series 15 (BBC One and Disney+, 2025).) the entity was described by Claude as a shifting, dark form akin to a shadow, with him also saying he could see it "running" towards Crusader 50, (TV: Midnight [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 4 (BBC One, 2008).) a description that coalited with sightings made by Belinda Chandra and the Fifteenth Doctor, both of whom witnessed the entity as a solid shape, including a dark-colored "head", roughly the size of a human's and with a segmented texture. Various humanoid soldiers whom saw the entity in full all reacted with immediate, abject terror at what they saw. (TV: The Well [+]Russell T Davies and Sharma Angel-Walfall, Doctor Who series 15 (BBC One and Disney+, 2025).)

While possessing and impersonating Sky Silvestry, the entity used both "it" and masculine pronouns to refer to itself. (TV: Midnight [+]Russell T Davies, Doctor Who series 4 (BBC One, 2008).)

Behind the scenes[]

Midnight Entity Face

The prosthetics used to portray the creature's semi-obscured head, worn by Paul Kasey.

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